TDK Life On Record Trek Max: One of the better Bluetooth bargains

[MUSIC] This is the Trek Max, the successor of TDK Life on Record's highly rated A33 wildest Bluetooth speaker, which I thought was an excellent value of $150. This new Treck Max A34 looks very similar to the A33 and cost the same, but has slightly improve sound and adds a few new features. Hi. I'm David Carnoy and welcome to another CNet video review of a portable Bluetooth speaker. Like the A33, the first thing you notice about the Trek Max is that when you pick it up, it's got some heft to it. It weighs in at 2.7 pounds, which makes it more of a mid-size wireless speaker than a true mini Bluetooth speaker. If you're looking for something really portable, this isn't it. But the extra size, at least in this case, means better sound. Well, it has a pretty straightforward boxy design. I liked it. Its got clean lines. And the buttons on the top of the unit are nicely indented and clearly labeled with LED lighting. As I said, this model has some extra buttons on top, and that's where you'll notice the main difference in the design between this and the older model. The speakers are equipped with two 1.5 inch drivers plus a 2.5 inch subwoofer on the front, and two rear 3 inch passive radiators on the back. It's splash proof, has speakerphone capability, and it's ports are covered by a removal rubber door that keeps moisture and dust out. Behind that rubber cover you'll find an audio input for non Bluetooth devices, a USB charging port for charging your smart phone from the speakers' internal battery, a power on off switch, and a 12 volt dc in charging port. Alas, like some of these more powerful compact speakers, you have to charge the unit with a separate ac adapter and not with a standard micro usb cable. The older A 33 sounded very good for it's size and price class, but I know that it fell down a little bit with certain tunes. Well Tk's engineers apparently read the review and tweaked the sound for the better, and now doesn't distort on any of the tracks I mentioned in my previous review, which doesn't seem like a coincidence. Well broadly speaking, this is a speaker that plays very loudly for it's size, has some nice punch to it's bass, and offers a reasonable amount of detail. Though it's treble performance isn't all that great. Overall it's a fairly pleasant sounding speaker, and it's faired better in our tests than many speakers in this price range. The Trek Max isn't perfect, but it's half the price of the Bose Soundlink Bluetooth speaker three, it's arguably one of the best portable Bluetooth speakers for the money, especially one you plan on using indoors and outdoors. I'm David Conway, and that's the TDK Life On Record Trek Max Bluetooth speaker. Thanks for watching.